Agentic Workflow Pattern

Standard multi-agent pipeline for implementation tasks.

Architecture Principles

• Use run_in_background: true for all agents to keep main context minimal
• Use Task tool (never TaskOutput) to avoid receiving full agent transcripts
• Agents write outputs to .claude/cache/agents/<stage>/ for injection into subsequent agents
• Main conversation is pure orchestration — no heavy lifting, only coordination

Workflow Stages

1. Research Agent

Task(subagent_type="oracle", run_in_background=true, prompt="""
Query NIA Oracle (via /nia-docs skill) to verify approach and gather best practices.

Output to: .claude/cache/agents/oracle/<task>-research.md
""")

• Enforce NIA as the research layer
• Output: Research findings

2. Planning Agent

Task(subagent_type="plan-agent", run_in_background=true, prompt="""
Read: .claude/cache/agents/oracle/<task>-research.md
Use RP-CLI to analyze the target codebase section.
Generate implementation plan informed by research.

Output to: .claude/cache/agents/plan-agent/<task>-plan.md
""")

• Receives: Research agent output as context
• Output: Implementation plan

3. Validation Agent

Task(subagent_type="validate-agent", run_in_background=true, prompt="""
Read: .claude/cache/agents/plan-agent/<task>-plan.md
Read: .claude/cache/agents/oracle/<task>-research.md
Review plan against research findings and best practices.

Output to: .claude/cache/agents/validate-agent/<task>-validated.md
""")

• Reviews plan against research
• Output: Validated plan with amendments

4. Implementation Agent

Task(subagent_type="agentica-agent", run_in_background=true, prompt="""
Read: .claude/cache/agents/validate-agent/<task>-validated.md
Read: .claude/cache/agents/oracle/<task>-research.md

TDD approach: Write failing tests FIRST, then implement.
Run tests to verify.

Output summary to: .claude/cache/agents/implement-agent/<task>-implementation.md
""")

• Receives: Validated plan + research context
• TDD: Failing tests first
• Output: Implementation + tests

5. Review Agent

Task(subagent_type="review-agent", run_in_background=true, prompt="""
Read: .claude/cache/agents/implement-agent/<task>-implementation.md
Read: .claude/cache/agents/validate-agent/<task>-validated.md
Read: .claude/cache/agents/oracle/<task>-research.md

Cross-reference implementation against plan and research.
Run tests to confirm passing.

Output to: .claude/cache/agents/review-agent/<task>-review.md
""")

• Cross-references all artifacts
• Confirms tests pass
• Output: Review summary

Agent Progress Monitoring

# Watch for system reminders:
# "Agent a42a16e progress: 6 new tools used, 88914 new tokens"

# Poll for output files:
find .claude/cache/agents -name "*.md" -mmin -5

# Check task file size growth:
wc -c /tmp/claude/.../tasks/<id>.output

Stuck detection:

1. Progress reminders stop arriving
2. Task output file size stops growing
3. Expected output file not created after reasonable time

Directory Structure

.claude/cache/agents/
├── oracle/
│   └── <task>-research.md
├── plan-agent/
│   └── <task>-plan.md
├── validate-agent/
│   └── <task>-validated.md
├── implement-agent/
│   └── <task>-implementation.md
└── review-agent/
    └── <task>-review.md

Key Rules

1. Never use TaskOutput – floods context with 70k+ token transcripts
2. Always run_in_background=true – isolates agent context
3. File-based handoff – each agent reads previous agent’s output file
4. Poll, don’t block – check file system for outputs, don’t wait
5. TDD in implementation – failing tests first, then make them pass

Source

• Session 2026-01-01: SDK Phase 3 implementation using this pattern